In the county villages
You were so young
You were shaken off the tree
I saw you,
You did not fall
The tree flung you to the ground
You did not leave
It passed between the wind to move you
Like a foreign body in a cavity
That will not be tolerated
You were dismissed from the pores of your entry
You were never alone, never a vagrant
Never tired within the esteem of giants
Who called you by your given name
They each saw you as you were
They did not shake you from that tree
That was post-totalitarian givings and goings
Designed to rid the county villages
Of the estate of leisure
And call on brittle farms
To bind the economy to your fortitude
With milk and eggs and cars and driveways
For your own protection, no,
For the law of the state’s protection